Muriel Weatherspoon: “…The teenage cultural scene, ladies and gentlemen, is dominated by illegal drug use, underage drinking and illicit sex. Teenagers seem drawn to these like a fish to water, and the immorality of today’s ‘hip’ (to use a currently ‘in’ word) lifestyle is a terrible influence. We, those who care, must…”

The fish tank wasn’t a real fish tank. It seemed like one, but if you looked closely you see it was a screen displaying computer generated fish in computer generated water swimming around computer generated rocks and plants. Someone called my name, so I looked away to reply.
“Hi, Suzy. Goin’ good?”

“Yeah, the goin’s great. Meet Sinner, my guy. He runs with the jaguars.” She gestured to a large, muscled dude wearing black jeans with yellow spots and a yellow trenchcoat with knives, chains and the occasional gun sticking out of the pockets.

“Any friend of Suzy’s is worth knowin’.” I said, thinking: oh wow, great choice, Suzy, street muscle with more guns than brains. Suzy must have picked this up, because as she and her escort left she threw me a look which said “Yeah, maybe, but at least he satisfies me.” I looked around, seeing a typical party scene, with intertwined couples and drunken discussions. I was in Rudy’s, a great place. It was three floors of large apartment block, with a nice feel to it and a lot of hardware. Rudy even had some real arcade machines in here. Then there’s the stereo systems, one on each floor. Pity about the location though. Rudy’s was in the South Bronx, and going to and fro was a calculated risk. I got up off the sofa and walked past a group talking around a table, upon which were about 30 beer cans. I was looking for Rudy, but I didn’t see him. I stood in a kitchen watching three girls mix tequila, vodka, little red capsules and large blue tablets when Lynner came in. He was a good friend of mine, but I hadn’t seen him for a long time.

“Chaz! Where you been?”

“Here, there. You?”

“Around, you know. Cuttin’ some deals.” Lynner saw himself as an entrepreneur. “Some great moves, too.”

“Always in control, too, I bet.”

“Always. Lissen, bro, you seen Lip?” This startled me. Lip was a dealer. A heavy dealer, in every sense. Lip wouldn’t cut any deals with a small-timer like Lynner, and Lynner knew it, so Lynner must want to buy.

“Sure. Why?”

“Ahh, he wants somethin’ I got.”

“Bullshit, Lynner.” I said wearily. “You’re buyin’. What about stayin’ clean?”

“I’m in control, man, as always. Where is he?”

I sighed, grimaced and said “Up. Near the stereo.”

Lynner turned and went, his leather biker’s jacket merging with a cluster of other leather biker’s jackets in the centre of the room. I saw people I knew in the cluster, and decided to let my leather mingle with its own kind.

For a while I was in one of the TV rooms. The TV was a big 170cm screen, which was displaying the President of the United States of Continental America explaining why he thought it was in the country’s best interests to give the remnants of the rain forest to the Faulkner Petrochemical Corporation as a ‘development area’. Most of the room seemed to think he was talking bullshit, which he was.

About half an hour later Lynner came back and said he had to go to the corner to get some money. I went with him. On the way out, I glanced into a room to see Sinner on top of Suzy, on the floor.

Gillian Winter, PhD, MD: “Adolescence is not actually an age bracket, but a psychosocial stage through which we normally pass at ages 12-19. It is a phase in which short-term thinking is totally prevalent, the adolescent being totally incapable of seeing the distant ramifications of his actions. As we mature…”

The D’Allessio’s sign buzzed and flickered s we walked into the corner minimart. I was about to ask what we were doing here, I had thought Lynner wanted to go to a bank machine, when Lynner pulls out this gun, a big black automatic, and starts screaming at the guy behind the counter…

“Get your hands up, you sonofabitch!”

…the storekeeper diving…

“Don’t fuck me around!”

…a white bang beside me…the storekeeper bringing up a sawn-off…

“No way.”

…booming noises…milk on my jacket from the punctured milk cartons next to me…

“See that! Just too hot!”

…yellow-red ichor on the wall behind the counter…

“Some shootin’, huh?”

…the dead eyes of the storekeeper…I stare into them as Lynner jumps the counter and rifles the cash register…I stare but I can’t figure out what colour they are…Lynner lifts a display of Hersheys and takes the notes from under it, grinning at his loot…

“Okay, man, let’s skat”

As we walked I looked at the smashed streetlights, the burnt out brownstones around Rudy’s, the graffitied walls. This city is really fucked, I thought. Decay is the right term. Decay at an incredible rate. I looked at the skyline and saw lights disappearing.

Martin Kleeverman, BA: “and to—sum up—my lecture, I will—reiterate—those icons which are paramount and—sacrosanct—in teenage culture. These are always in—fashion, are status symbols, and those possessing many of them are—revered. Roughly, these icons are sunglasses, especially—mirrored, leather jackets, guitars, guns and motorbikes. Thank you for…”

Back at Rudy’s I find Rudy, and talk to him. Rudy’s a great guy, an ex-hacker I think. He knows a lot of powerful people, and some owe him favours-which is one of the reasons nobody trashes the place when he holds parties. He’s got it all, too. A beautiful, original Stratocaster guitar, money, a red Yamaha Rapier. So I talked to him for a while, about lots of things, and I began to feel that I was falling apart. I was drinking, and there was heavy hash going around, and they didn’t help, and I felt as if my outer shell was crumbling and…and there was nothing inside. I had to get out, to do something, anything.

“Hey, Rudy, how much do you want for your bike?”

“More’n you could afford, Chaz.” He laughed.

“No, man, I mean it. How much?”

He looked at me was if I was crazy (maybe I was) and said “At least 8000.”

“I’ll get if for you by 2.” I got up and went looking for Lynner.

He was lying on a couch, staring into space. I reached into his inside pocket and took his automatic. Then I left.

I went out, and immediately my head began to clear as I breathed the night smog. Where the fuck was I going to get 8000 dollars? I decided to forget about it, but if I went back to Rudy’s I’d look like an asshole. I wandered around-which, upon reflection, is a stupid thing to do in the South Bronx.

Actually, I wandered out of the South Bronx, up near Allerton, but the neighbourhood was just as bad. The tenement houses were burnt out or falling down, the streetlights were all smashed and the doors of the more affluent were armoured. Gang slogans were everywhere. I didn’t see a single other person, unless you counted the few cars that roared through the streets on their way to greener hills.

As I walked along Wallace Avenue, I passed by two guys talking in an alley. I decided to eavesdrop, and I discovered that they had just sold a lot of mesc. About 9000 dollars worth of mesc. Well, they were drug dealers, scum of the earth, probably pimps, probably rapist junkies and welfare cheats and depraved killers. Maybe I just needed the money. I took out the automatic and stepped forward.

“Okay, drop that money!”

They gaped at me. They were probably off their turf, but still didn’t expect to be challenged by one guy, especially a guy not in gang colours.

“Don’t fuck with me!”

Serves them right, discussing profits in an alley. They dropped the money.

“Okay. Now, even thought you didn’t give my family a chance, I’ll give you one minute to run before I start shootin’.” They had evidently seen as many vigilante movies as I had. They ran pretty fast.

Tomas Majkowski, MD, PhD: “…However, to bring up my esteemed colleague’s point of black and white thinking, the mature adult considers all facets of the argument. However, the teenager, as my esteemed colleague mentioned, takes one position and brands all others as wrong, as shown by my own point, that being that the teenager, in accordance with teenage culture, sees authority as evil and rebellion as good. However, as we all know, the informed mature view, which is representative of multifaceted thinking, is that authority is necessary for society’s existence. However, the teenager shows no respect for authority. However…”

I bought the Rapier from Rudy. It’s a great bike. I got on it and really sped around. Travelling at speeds in excess of 120mph at 2a.m. in a built up area is something else. I must’ve gotten high doing it because I passed an empty police car beside a diner and decided to go back and buzz the cops. I shut off the headlight and slowly got the bike onto the sidewalk about 300 metres away from car number 17. I accelerated to about 80. As I approached, the cops came out of the diner. I switched on the headlight and roared between them, firing all the shots from Lynner’s gun into the air. The looks on their faces were so funny. Before they dived and started to look really pissed, they looked like rabbits caught in headlights. I decided to take it easy, go home at a rational speed, like about 40, and sleep.

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